Diamonds of the Past

Chapter 1 - From Alaska to New York

Half a century had passed since his last visit and a full century since the body had been moved from its previous location, inside a cave high up in the Vinson Mountains. Quite a journey it had been too, moving a corpse from Antarctica all the way to Alaska. And the logistics of it quite problematic without the infrastructure of the twentieth century. The body was resting deep inside a maze-like cave near the peak of Mount Denali. Anshar wasn't exactly a corpse - nothing as permanent as that. In a way, he was still very much alive, simply unaware of the centuries that had flown by since he had last walked and terrorized the face of the Earth. Over twenty-three hundred years had passed since a witch had sentenced him to his millennial sleep. At least there was no consciousness inside him to feel the passing of time. Or was there? So many times Egil had contemplated the horror of Anshar still being conscious while in his coma-like sleep, aware of everything around him: the cold, the loneliness, the hunger and the scarce and quiet visits his first creation paid him. His first creation and no one else.

On occasion, it seemed like much too severe of a punishment, but for the most part, it was exactly what the monster that laid dormant under marble-like skin deserved. He had brought a violent and untimely death to countless people and that is without including the casualties on the battlefields. The fangs covered by perfectly sculpted and pale lips had fed on many innocent and guilty alike. Then again, the same could be said for Egil and he knew, as he looked upon his maker's body laying on his bed-like stone, that the very same fate was what he deserved as well. It didn't stop there. All of his blood-siblings and their offspring should be sharing that punishment for those same crimes. Monsters, all of them. Did numbers matter all that much? A few hundreds more or less when it came to counting victims was meaningless when considering the centuries of preying and feeding on mortals. His poor sire had been the first and, in a way, uniquely tortured, with no control over what had happened to him. Perhaps, in a twisted way of looking at it, he had been the most innocent of them all.

A fleeting frown perturbed the handsome face as old memories flooded his mind: images of his wife's bloodied form strewn over their bed, his sister's lifeless eyes looking up at the ceiling from the floor of their room and his little brother, cruelly arranged to look as if he was sleeping, near the fountain. He hadn't known then that the man he would come to view as a savior, mentor, friend, ally, king, and so much more, was responsible for it all. That memory - the sight of his slaughtered loved ones was something he re-lived with each visit.

Yet the pain had dulled over the centuries and that only angered and confused Egil even more. No amount of time should have lessened such agony - be it years, centuries or eons. He felt like a monster for not being able to experience the same raging torture that he had felt on that day. He was a monster for it and for many other things as well.

After that tragedy had come Thagi. She had been yet another victim of Anshar's jealousy and he didn't even, to that day, have any idea about how she had met her end. That same monster responsible for the worst pain in his life had also gifted him with immortality and many years of unrivaled happiness and pleasure. He was the man Egil hated and loved above all others - his maker, his sire and his greatest enemy. He longed to hear his voice and see the look he used to give him, full of passion and possibilities, but all his desire was laced with pain and hate. He found himself having to work to hang onto hatred and keep its flame burning over the years - refusing to let go of it even if it had to be refueled ever so often. Anshar was, for all intents and purposes, dead. He was going to stay that way for a very long time to come.

Egil turned around at human speed, facing away from Anshar's resting form. He hadn't uttered a single word the whole time he had been there, nor were there any he wanted to say to his maker. The vampire had voiced it all in his early visits - he had raged, cried and screamed his hate as well as proclaimed his love. He had sworn eternal loathing and also professed his desire to relive the days they had spent together and to be able to look at him and not see the creature that had slaughtered his entire family and had robbed him of a chance at a second love.